Time, Place, Tradition: Authorizing Musical Adaptation in the Long Nineteenth Century

Among the kaleidoscopic trajectories of arranging music for instrumental ensemble in the long nineteenth century, the questions of where the adaptations were made, what traditions they adopted and what view they took of their original subjects are paramount. The three issues entwine themselves in complex ways. Although there were pan-European traditions—the piano-vocal score of a lyric stage work, or the reduction of larger concerted works for piano trio—some local traditions are already apparent. At the beginning of the century, Viennese traditions entertained the most diverse range of adaptation with reworkings for string ensemble while London exploited perhaps the narrowest range with a predilection for the JUPITER ensemble (fortepiano, flute, violin, cello). By the mid-century in Paris, the music of previous generations collided with the development of the orgue expressif, which in combination with the fortepiano and at the hands of the virtuoso pianist Amédée Méreaux and others formed the core of domestic adaptations. When Hummel arranged Mozart in the 1820s or Eduard Steuermann arranged Schönberg’s works from the 1910s they could point to apprentice status regarding their sources.